One bedtime a couple of weeks ago I found something in the newspaper that really drew my attention – I didn’t know that men still wore them – and I passed it over to Chris. My grumpy half was nearly asleep (well, it was past midnight) and, with some irritation, he threw the newspaper onto the floor. “If you don’t want one you don’t have to have one!” I said, almost to myself and, eventually, after several minutes of giggling, I went to sleep.

In the morning Chris was his good humoured self again, so much so that he awakened me with peals of laughter. He was sat up in bed with the newspaper in his hands…

“Treat yourself… or the one you love… to a comfy nights sleep,” he read out between guffaws.

I’ve been thinking about that male model ever since. What induced him to accept the job? Had he been furloughed from his normal job and his wife, perhaps working from home, couldn’t stick him being around the house during Lockdown? Was it she who had suggested that he take up an artistic line of work in the interim? Imagine, if you will, a little scenario that may have been something akin to the truth….

“Mum,” begins the middle-aged man on his phone.

“Any news Richard?” his mother sounds excited.

“Yes, it’s all happened rather fast. Cynthia only sent off the digital photos of me on Wednesday and I’ve just heard back.”

“Oh, Richard, how wonderful! And it’s only Friday today! They must think you’re handsome. I always said you should have gone into television. How thrilling! Have they offered you a photo shoot?”

“No, Mum, they don’t tell you that you’re handsome – there must be a lot of good looking younger guys out there. And they are just the agents showing the photos of people on their books to the clients. But… I have been offered a job for next week.”

“Is it something glamorous? Will you be on TV?”

“No, no, Mum, I’m not an actor, but they want me for a photo shoot for an advert. It will be in the Daily Express.”

“Really? Oh gosh, how fantastic! I’m so proud of you Ricky. Do you know what you’ll be advertising?”

“No, they were a bit vague when I asked. They just said it was men’s nightwear. To be honest, I’m a bit worried that I’ll have to bare my chest. I’m not as muscly or as trim as I was.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll probably have special lighting Darling.”

The male model didn’t have to worry on that score after all, and the lighting genius wasn’t called in for his expertise… He didn’t have to bare his chest…

No wonder the agents were a bit vague….

“I’m too tired for lipstick,” I thought as I looked in the bathroom mirror, “but I always put on a bit of lipstick before I go out.”

So I found the closest lipstick (I was too tired to delve) and I grinned at myself. I looked like a clown with red lips against my pale, tired skin; but at least it gave me a little fake life and zing, even if it clashed with my light pink jacket and orange cut off trousers.

“Why am I so tired?” I asked Chris as I reached the top of our twenty-nine steps to the gate.

I laughed and Chris didn’t answer, perhaps because he has an ear infection and couldn’t hear, or maybe because there was no need to reply. He might even have been too tired to respond with anything other than a Harpo Marx kind of smile.

Firstly, I had to drop off a birthday present for my friend Catherine. She also happens to be my neighbour – another twenty-nine or so steps down to her front door. It took ages for the door to open. Apparently her daughter Miri was frightened by the unaccustomed laughter coming from behind the door (and the blurry figure of a clown in pink and orange seen through the obscured glass). And then there was the singing, “Happy Birthday to…”

“Oh, your mum’s out, is she?”

I couldn’t have really counted on Catherine being in – her birthday was over a week ago – and what made me laugh was the tired envelope that sheathed the tired and belated card, that wasn’t a real birthday card… And I didn’t even buy it. It came from my late mother’s stock of cards.

“Be sure to sing Happy Birthday to your mum for me when she comes home,” I said to Miri.

“Are you alright?” Miri asked concerned.

“Yes, just a bit tired, you know how it is when you’re too tired to put lipstick on?”

Miri agreed but looked puzzled and I guessed that either she didn’t wear lipstick when going for a walk in a forest or she’s never been that tired.

Yes, Chris and I had a walk in a forest. We forced ourselves to walk the long way around and went right to the top of the old golf course to extend the walk.

“It’s lovely in our forest, isn’t it?” Catherine said over the phone just now. (She loved the gifts and her card!!!!)

“Yes, lovely,” I answered. I was too tired to tell her I was so tired.

After our walk this morning, which included going up to Mum’s grave and watering the spring flowers we had planted earlier (Mum would be pleased), I thought I might make another big batch of soup upon our return. Delighted with the delicious spicy butternut pumpkin soup of yesterday, and wishing to show the British Bulldog spirit of wartime and lockdown, I thought I’d use those old split peas lurking at the top of a kitchen cupboard and a few of the funny-looking dried green bean things (from my vegetarian days several years ago) to make a pea and ham soup. Actually, I didn’t have any ham – just some already opened smoked streaky bacon that had to be used up before the 26th March. I’m off bacon. It’s so tough nowadays, isn’t it? The plan was to pop the unappetising bacon into the pressure cooker with the soaked split peas and green things, along with onions and potatoes, then pull out the bacon after pressurizing.

A soak overnight had made little impression on the medley of dried peas and beans; they were still rather hard, small and vividly ochre and lincoln green. Nevertheless, they went into the pressure cooker with the potatoes and onions. I thought Mum would have been proud of me making the most of the things from yesteryear that had been forgotten behind the dried raisins and odd coloured pasta. “Waste not, want not,” I could hear my mother’s words.

Wouldn’t you think that an hour in a pressure cooker would be ample to soften soaked peas and beans? And the bacon was still hard and grainy. Wouldn’t you think that a further 40 minutes at full temperature would do the trick? No, you’ve guessed it, the water level had boiled down to a dangerous level and the hard yellow peas were now brown and stuck to the bottom of the pressure cooker.

In true British Bulldog spirit (even though I’m Australian) I saved the day, or soup of the day, with a strainer. The remaining inch of soup liquor was really quite savoury and made an excellent stock for the two asparagus CupaSoups, which I added along with some boiling water.

“It’s lovely soup!” Chris enthused as he took his first mouthful.

Neither Chris nor I could manage to finish our “Lockdown Soup”, as I call it, but, being stoical, we’ve decided to put the leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch. We can hardly wait!

“Want me to put some make-up on you?” I asked my mum as I entered the lounge-room.

“Yes please,” she replied with a sweet smile.

Mum knew I was going to ask that. I always ask the same thing, after which I nip upstairs to her room and find her make-up bag, and hunt for her missing hearing aid.

This morning Mum was sat on the seat of her walker, which is a little higher than most of the armchairs. Sitting there made her look lively and expectant, as if she was ready to bound up at any moment – I liked that look.

“I’m very lucky to have nice daughters,” I could hear Mum saying to the others as I dashed out of the lounge.

Mum closed her eyes and tilted her face up for me to apply the foundation cream, and I noticed the singing behind me. I thought it was an old film on the television.

“That old song might even be from before your time, Mum,” I laughed, wondering momentarily if they still put ancient black and white movies on television in the middle of the day.

Turning around, I saw that the television was off – it was a recording.

Whilst I was combing Mum’s hair another song came on, a nicer one.

“What a pretty voice!” my mother echoed my own thoughts.

By the time I was painting Mum’s fingernails yet another song was being played, and this time I recognised it although I have to say that the song had never had any particular meaning to me before.

~ We’ll meet again
Don’t know where, don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away ~

“Do you know how old Dame Vera Lynn is?” I asked, feeling that my mother would be pleased to learn that someone famous and still alive is actually older than her.

“Forty-seven!” Mum said impishly.

“One hundred and two!” I corrected.

” So will you please say “Hello” to the folks that I know
Tell them I won’t be long,” a little voice sang along. I didn’t now that the lady in the chair opposite Mum could speak.

“They’ll be happy to know that as you saw me go
I was singing this song,” Mum sang along too.

My eyes brimmed with tears and I thought I was going to burst out crying but that wouldn’t have been very uplifting – would it? So I put Mum’s sun hat on her, helped her into the wheelchair and we went into the garden where I picked a bunch of flowers on Mum’s direction.

“This feels like my private garden,” said my mum with an expression of inner contentment.

And I keep thinking about “We’ll Meet Again”, now one of my favourite songs, and with great meaning.

The full words to the song are below:

We’ll meet again
Don’t know where, don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

[Pre-Chorus]
So will you please say “Hello” to the folks that I know
Tell them I won’t be long
They’ll be happy to know that as you saw me go
I was singing this song

[Chorus]
We’ll meet again
Don’t know where, don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day

[Verse]
We’ll meet again
Don’t know where, don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

“Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen”, as the saying goes.

That reminds me (and I’m keen to tell you)…. I’ve been meaning to explain why I haven’t written any new blog posts for such a long time. No, I’m not bored – oh how wonderful it would be to have time to be bored! There you have it, I’ve been so busy in the last three months or more that I simply haven’t had time to sit down and write, except for when I felt impelled to tell you in my last post about the funny experience I had on my mum’s hospital ward.

Since then our super mum has been back in her home for nearly a week, off for another week in Torbay Hospital following a bleed between her skull and brain, then back in our local Dawlish Hospital for recuperation, where she is currently awaiting discharge. Poor Mum! She is getting better but it’s terrible being confined when you’re used to being active and something of a gadabout, even when you are a lady of ninety-six. Doesn’t she look sweet in the photos below?

So, on to what happened one day last week… Everyone was at the house of my sister Mary. Our Aussie nieces were down in Devon for a visit before going off travelling then heading off back to Australia and Mary had invited them (and Chris and I) for a goodbye dinner. Nearly all of Mary’s large family were there when Chris and I turned up.

As we walked into the lounge room my sister’s lovely son-in-law Martin stood up to greet us.

“You look very trim and muscular!” I said approvingly.

Martin patted his flat stomach.

“I suppose I have lost a bit of weight,” he smiled modestly.

“He goes to the gym a lot,” said one of his little girls.

“No, it’s me,” began his wife Liz (my niece who was born on my nineteenth birthday!), “you know what they say, Sally – treat ’em mean, keep ’em lean!”

The inspiration for my painting “Dream Girl” (Acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″ x 2″ depth) came from a walk on Buddina Beach (Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia) as the sun was going down behind a bank of clouds.

Evening is perhaps the best time to take in the beauty of this coastline as the heat of the day passes and the blue and white turns to pink and gold; and if you’re lucky a breeze will blow through your hair as you wade through the incoming waves, but watch out for the bluebottle jellyfish – I’m allergic!

My childhood friend Lorelle was happy simply to sit on a sand dune while I walked up the beach; she knew I would be some time for I was looking for the subject of my next painting. A couple with their two dogs, an old lady with her boxer, a hunky surfer – all worthy subjects for my camera – but then I saw her in the distance… Deep in thought as she looked out to sea, a young woman stood alone at the water’s edge; she seemed to delight in the feeling of the waves meeting her bare feet, and she couldn’t have known how lovely she looked as her form was reflected in the ebbing water.

Back in Brisbane two weeks or so later some art connoisseurs came to see the finished painting.

“Who is the girl?” asked my brother Bill.

“Just a girl, it doesn’t really matter who she is. I’d like her to be whoever the beholder imagines – like a dream girl,” I explained.

A little later that day a very important person came also to view the painting – it was Mason, our friend Roland’s six-year-old grandson, whom I’ve known and loved since he was a two month old baby.

“Who is the girl?” asked Mason’s mum.

“Nobody in particular, just a dream girl,” I said enigmatically (well, you have to try to make it interesting!).

Mason smiled as he walked over to where I was sitting and he whispered in my ear:

“It’s really you – isn’t it Sally?” 

“Yes,” I said and I gushed with love for the most darling little boy in Australia.

Back in June last year I posted a blog entitled Internet Purgatory which was all about a strange “Friend Request” I had received on Facebook, purportedly, from an old girlfriend of my brother Henry; odd indeed as the lady had died over four years ago! At the end of my humorous account (my husband Chris and his quips!) I had added a few photographs and two funny cartoons which had originally come to my attention via social media. 

Bloggers beware! Apparently, some people are deliberately putting out material that is likely to be picked up and used innocently – and without any financial gain or stolen glory – by bloggers such as myself. For what purpose? To extort money from the unsuspecting blogger on the grounds of stolen copyright. They frighten you with emails and letters threatening to take you to court unless you pay up over £200 (taking the little cartoon off your post is not enough – they want recompense for the several smiles that may have resulted when some of your readers clicked on the image). Then you phone them (PicRights.com who represent CartoonStock Ltd) and tell them that you’re just a poor blogger sharing a laugh and not benefiting in any way from the use of the precious image, and a nice lady agrees, and is quite sympathetic – she can see you are telling the truth – but she is powerless to stop her employers from taking you to court because, strictly speaking, you have broken the copyright law. She can accept no less than £60 to resolve the matter and “think yourself lucky” – after all, it could have been so much more!

So, if any cartoons come your way over the Internet, do scrutinise with a magnifying glass for the CartoonStock Ltd logo and avoid like the plague. Or if you are really unscrupulous, and an artist, and you want to make some easy money, draw some vaguely comical cartoons and place them in the hands of CartoonStock Ltd. They are doing a grand job of causing Internet Hell.